A Veteran Affairs employee has come forward claiming that government officials doctored the medial records of deceased veterans in order to hide the fact that they died waiting for medical care.

Speaking during an interview with CNN that aired Monday,
scheduling clerk Pauline DeWenter of the Phoenix, Arizona
veterans facility said she has “surrendered evidence” to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealing that vets were not
only placed on a secret waiting list for the purposes of
maintaining the illusion that patients were receiving timely
care, but also that those who died waiting for appointments had
their records changed to indicate they were still alive.

According to DeWenter, there were at least seven different
occasions in which the records of deceased veterans were altered.
Originally, she documented the details of a veteran’s death only
to find her work written over by another individual. This
practice had even occurred as recently as a few weeks ago, she
said, amid investigations into whether or not delayed medical
appointments really did result in fatalities.

To DeWenter, the reason for the doctored records was clear:
Someone wanted to place the deceased veterans back on the
electronic waiting list so that it looked like they were still
alive.

"I would say (it was done to) hide the fact. Because it is
marked a death. And that death needs to be reported,” she
told CNN. “So if you change that to, 'entered in error' or,
my personal favorite, 'no longer necessary,' that makes the death
go away. So the death would never be reported then."

Additionally, DeWenter confirmed the existence of a “secret
waiting list,” onto which requests for new appointments were
placed and subsequently forgotten about. Meanwhile, the
electronic waiting list continued to make it look like patients
were receiving care within the 14-day period mandated by the
federal government – a rule that, when followed and reported,
resulted in bonus pay for senior staff.

As for where those new appointment requests went, "They went
into a desk drawer,” she said.

By early 2013, there were more than 1,700 patients waiting for
appointments and 40 new requests a day. In addition to dealing
with a lack of staff, DeWenter also had to try and accommodate
specific appointment requests coming from doctors and nurses for
patients who had no time to wait. This resulted in even further
delays for those previously waiting.

“That really overtook even the wait list," she said.
"Because now I have a consult where veterans are very sick.
So I have to ease up on the wait list. It sounds so wrong to say,
but I tried to work these scheduled appointments so at least I
felt the sickest of the sick were being treated."

DeWenter was convinced she had to come forward after calling a
veteran to inform him that, months after his initial request, an
appointment was finally ready. He came in previously because he
was urinating blood, but by the time DeWenter called his family,
he had already passed away. She told the Office of the Inspector
General everything she knew, but when that did not lead to
action, she went to the press.

When CNN asked the Veteran Affairs Department to comment on the
allegations, it responded with the following statement:

"As Acting Secretary Gibson has said at VA facilities around
the country, we must work together to fix the unacceptable,
systemic problems in accessing VA healthcare. We know that in
many communities, including Phoenix, veterans wait too long for
the care they've earned and deserve. That's why VA is taking
action to accelerate access to care and reaching out to veterans
to get them off wait lists and into clinics.

"We respect the independent review and recommendations of the
Office of Inspector General (OIG) regarding systemic issues with
patient scheduling and access, and we await the OIG's final
review."

These allegations are the latest to come out regarding the long
wait times not just in Phoenix, but in multiple jurisdictions
across the United States. As RT reported earlier this month, an
audit of the VA department found that over 100,000 veterans
across more than 700 facilities are struggling to receive timely
care.

Despite records showing that the White House was warned not to
trust the reports coming in from various veterans’ facilities
more than five years ago, it’s unclear what, if anything, was
done to address the situation. The scandal has already forced the
resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, and President Obama
said other terminations could follow.